Parashat Mishpatim: הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים | hamishpatim
When we imagine utopia, I think many of us imagine a place without the need for this sort of judgement, a place where we all just somehow magically get along. But utopia, etymologically, is a not-place, a world that does not and cannot exist. To build a utopia of ideas is trivial, and also useless — no one can live there, because it is not real. The useful utopia — the eutopia, if you will, the good-place — will have to exist here, in the world with actual humans in it, the world full of disputes and quarrels and judgements.
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